Rock Bottom Girl(65)

“The library is not for necking,” Mrs. Ritter, the head librarian, said crisply. She was dressed in schoolmarm brown. Brown clogs. Brown dress. Brown cardigan. Disapproving look on her face. When I was a teenager, I’d been a little obsessed with wondering whether letting her hair out of her tight bun and taking off her nerd glasses would transform her into the sexy librarian. I never got my answer, but I liked to think at home Mrs. Ritter would let her hair down and do naked Pilates or something.

“Sorry, Mrs. Ritter,” I said sheepishly.

“Ms. Cicero, I would have expected better from you,” Mrs. Ritter sniffed before toddling off with her tote bag that said, “DON’T INTERRUPT ME. I’M READING.”

“Sorry,” Marley croaked after her. She turned her attention back to me and punched me in the arm. “What the hell was that?”

“I kissed the hell out of you, and then we got yelled at by the librarian,” I recapped.

“You’re a jerk.”

I stuffed her into the passenger seat of my car. “Do swans really need a mate?”





39





Marley





It was our first home game under the lights in the stadium, and the dozen or so spectators, mostly parents, spread out in the stands trying to look like a bigger crowd. The opposing team, the Blue Ball Blue Jays—Lancaster County had some weirdly named towns—arrived caravan-style with parents and friends pouring out of cars behind the team bus. We Barn Owls were officially outnumbered on our home turf.

It was not an auspicious start.

My parents were there holding a Coach Cicero is Our Snack Cake sign. I waved weakly at them, and Dad held the sign over his head.

Libby tugged her new socks into place over the shin guards I’d sweated over for thirty minutes before making the decision to buy. I was trying to weigh the expense of name-brand sports equipment with the nasty snark that came from generic second-hand stuff.

“Is this normal?” she asked, nodding toward the nearly empty stands.

“Got me. I’m new.” When I was in high school, the girls team didn’t draw the crowds that the boys soccer teams did. But I didn’t remember it being quite this dismal.

“They don’t have a reason to come see us,” Morgan E. said, threading her fingers through her purple mohawk.

“Yet,” Vicky corrected her from her bottomless well of delusional optimism. “They don’t have a reason to come see us yet.”

“New girl’s playing varsity, isn’t she?” Angela asked, sticking her chin out in Libby’s direction.

“Name’s Libby,” Libby corrected.

“Whatever,” Angela grumbled. “Just don’t embarrass us.”

“Nice attitude, Suzy Sunshine,” I told Angela.

I sent the varsity team, with Libby, up to the stands to spread out and make it look like there were actual fans present. The JV game went reasonably well. In a year or two, they’d be a solid team since they hadn’t had as much time to be scarred by the varsity assholery of Lisabeth.

At the end of the first half, we were down 1-0, but I’d seen a lot of potential on the field. I took Rachel, the shy forward, aside while everyone else was taking the field for the second half. “Listen, you’ve got everything you need. Speed, footwork. Go out there and put the ball in the back of the net.”

“I’ll try, Coach.”

“Don’t try. Just do it.”

Rachel nodded and jogged out onto the field.

“You’re mixing your Star Wars with your Nike slogans,” Vicky observed.

“Shut up. I’m new at this rah rah shit.”

The ref blew the whistle, and the second half began. Twenty seconds in, one of our midfielders stripped the ball from a Blue Jay and fired it up the line to Rachel.

Vicky and I grabbed each other and started shouting. “Go!”

Rachel took off, her little feet a blur as she drove down the field. “TAKE THE SHOT!” I screamed. I was going to need to drink a jar of honey after every game to soothe my throat.

In slow motion, Rachel cranked her right leg back and fired away.

Vicky and I held our breath with the rest of the team and the five or six people in the stands who were paying attention.

The ball soared through the air. The Blue Jay goalie dove for it. I swear, even from fifty yards away, I could still hear the victorious swish of ball meeting net.

I was screaming. Vicky was screaming. The JV team was on its feet. The varsity players were pounding the bleachers. And Rachel was standing on the field frozen as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just done. And then her teammates tackled her.

“My daughter taught her to do that,” my dad howled from the stands.





We won 3-2. Rachel had two goals and an assist and couldn’t wipe the dazed smile off her face. I wanted to cry happy tears and eat celebratory chicken corn soup and nachos. But I still had an entire varsity game to get through.

“Yo, Coach!”

I turned my attention away from the varsity’s warm-up on the field. Floyd waved from behind the field’s fence. Guidance counselor Andrea and French teacher Haruko Smith were decked out in Barn Owl gear next to him. I waved back, grateful for their support and hoping they weren’t going to witness anything humiliating.